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Yields mostly up in southwest Kansas
Published 7/7/2009 in Local News
By RACHAEL GRAY
Harvest is wrapping up and is expected to finish in most places by the end of the week, according to area co-op reports Monday.
A few farmers still are cutting, but most co-ops reported being 80 to 90 percent finished.
The USDA crop report Monday reported 99 percent of wheat in the state is ripe compared to 97 percent at this time last year. Eighty-three percent has been harvested, compared to 73 percent last year at this time.
Wheat conditions rate at 3 percent very poor, 9 percent poor, 25 percent fair and 45 percent very good.
Ed Smith, grain division manager for Dodge City Co-op, said he is pleased with harvest outcomes in Gray County. He said harvest should be finished Wednesday or Thursday there. Smith reported Gray County had beat its 10-year average for wheat production.
Last year, Smith said, the Dodge City Co-op took 6,365,000 bushels. This year, as of Monday, it had collected 6,850,000 bushels.
"We had good rain around Easter that really helped harvest this year," Smith said.
He said the 3 to 5 inches of rain that hit the area in April helped. It was a good, steady rain that seeped into the ground and stuck around, he said.
"All in all we had a good harvest year," Smith said.
Dan Hild, from Tribune Grain, said Greeley County was about 95 percent done as of Monday night. He said some of the irrigated wheat still is green but would be ready to cut soon.
"Harvest progressed really fast this year," Hild said. "We didn't have many rain delays."
Hild said some farmers were disappointed this year as the county average yields were between 28 and 30 bushels per acre. He attributed the low numbers to a dry winter, presence of the mosaic fungus, mite problems and the hessian fly, which lays eggs on the wheat plant and eats the stock.
"Usually, no hessian flies are reported west of Ness City, but we did have some reports this year," he said.
In Haskell County Monday, Gail Otis, branch manager at Providence Grain, said harvest will wrap up by the end of the week.
"We had a great harvest this year," Otis said. She said from the beginning, Haskell County had good test weights. A little moisture made some of the wheat look bleached out, but most everything bounced back, she said.
"We took about 745,000 bushels last year, and this year we're at about 790,000 as of (this morning)," she said.
Dave Erwin, of Syracuse Co-op Exchange in Hamilton County, said he expects harvest to finish this afternoon or Wednesday morning.
"We had quite a bit more wheat than expected, and what we got was better quality than expected," he said.
Erwin attributed the good harvest outcome to a year of good moisture.
"We drilled into areas of good moisture, which gave us a nice start," he said.
He said the co-op took in 53 percent more wheat than last year.
Greg Fletcher, ADM Grain, reported Wichita County was about 85 percent done Monday.
"We had a good, average harvest this year," he said.
Though the yields varied, he said, Wichita County took in quite a bit more grain than last year.
Employees at Finney County Co-op said they were too busy wrapping up harvest this morning to talk about yields and test weights they're seeing in the county.
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